Funny Business Video Gallery
A look at what's likely to happen at the registers once the doors open on Friday, with Richard Hastings, Global Hunters ...
Whether the deals are better than what shoppers will usually see or if it is just another marketing tactic, with Hitha P...
- Revenge of the Gangsta Nerds
- It's Beginning To Look A Lot More Riskless
- Topless Business Is Taking Off
- Gambling Drunk, Texting to Live And America's On Sale - Your Emails
- The Lloyd's Prayer, Leggo My Eggo, Plate Hate & Your Emails
- Help Wanted—Please Run $4 Billion University
- Madoff—The Holiday Drink
- Drugs, Booze and Vegas
- Happy World Toilet Day
- Coffee, Tea or My Ad?
MOST SHARED
- The Executive Job Search
- Chinese Overcapacity is Worsening, EU Chamber Warns
- Where Do Pardoned Turkeys Go?
- US Mint to Suspend American Eagle Gold 1-Ounce Coins
- Salvation Army's Kettles Now Credit Card-Ready
- Activision Prepares to Double Dip on ‘Modern Warfare 2’
- Trader Talk
- Topless Business Is Taking Off
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- 4 Thanksgiving Week Buys For Your Portfolio: Market Pros
- There's a 'Great Chance' For a Double-Dip Recession: Strategist
- Revenge of the Gangsta Nerds
- Will TCU See The "Flutie Effect?"
- Retail Earnings and Sales to Improve in Q4: Analyst
- Consumers Catching the Holiday Spirit
- It's Beginning To Look A Lot More Riskless
- Crescenzi: Claims Level Suggests End to Job Losses
- Hedge Funds Take Early Lead in Warren Buffett's 'Big Bet'
- China Overcapacity Worsening, EU Chamber Warns
- Investing in Good Karma – and Making a Profit
- Wal-Mart Price Pressure Hurts China Workers: Report
- UK Banks Must Disclose Top Pay: Review
- Black Friday to Avoid Red Ink; Greenback Gets the Blues
- Bankruptcies Jump, Hitting Highest Level in Four Years
- Steepest Black Friday Discounts, Revealed
- Fed to Counsel Moviegoers on How to Use Credit Cards
- Where Do Pardoned Turkeys Go?
RSS FEED
» Help
powered by digg

May.18
1:16 AM ET
Friday, 18 May 2007
Best Waste, Feminine Colons & Wacky World
Best Waste of Money This Month
Someone please to explain how the following research can benefit humankind. I will post interesting replies, and the reader with the best explanation will win a CNBC cap (I know I have one around here somewhere).
![]() |
Common Fruit Fly |
Anyhow, researchers thought that in the white room... with black curtains (kidding, a little Clapton humor there), the flies would move randomly. But they didn't. Okay, what I just told you in English is described below by the scientists themselves: "Naively, if the production of torque spikes in our featureless or uniform environment were due to random noise in the Drosophila brain or from any uncontrollable input, the time intervals between spikes (inter-spike interval, ISI) should reflect this stochasticity, much like the hiss of static from a radio between stations."
But the movements weren't random, they weren't like the "hiss of static." So the scientists ran through a host of computer models and finally figured out the flies are choosing where to turn.
The "groundbreaking study" is reported in the latest issue of an online journal called PloS ONE. The lead author, Alexander Maye of the University of Hamburg, says, "I would have never guessed that simple flies who otherwise keep bouncing off the same window have the capacity for nonrandom spontaneity if given the chance." And I would have never guessed you'd care.
Here's more details -- and a video of a tethered fly.
Best Press Release Headline
"Women Have Colons, Too"
And here I thought we only had semi-colons. ;)
It's a Wacky World
I went to Africa in January with a church group to help at some rescue centers for abandoned babies. Yeah, aren't I special? (By the way, if you'd actually like to help, look here. I've seen the operations, and they are first rate).
That's not the point I'm making here. The point is… well… it's a funny world. A couple weeks ago, I emailed one of the Kenyan missionaries running a New Life Home to say I'd done a story on the horse that won America's most famous horse race, the Kentucky Derby, and the horse is probably worth $30 million. He thinks I made that up.
Now I'm emailing him about how a painting by Andy Warhol about a car crash has sold for $71 million. He will think I'm telling a joke again. I'm wondering if it's safe to tell him that the domain name Porn.com just sold for $9.5 million, the second most expensive domain name ever, behind… Sex.com, which sold for more than $11 million last year. Nah. He'd never believe me.
Comments? Funny Stories? Email
© 2009 CNBC, Inc. All Rights Reserved
POPULAR FUNNY BUSINESS POSTS
MORE FROM CNBC







